Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Legislative Changes for PERS Members

01:47 Understanding the Legislative Process

03:30 Tracking Specific Bills Effectively Demo

04:59 Utilizing Resources for Bill Monitoring

07:17 Engaging with Local Lawmakers

09:11 Taking Action as a PERS Member

Transcript

Hi everyone, I'm Ryan Earley, host of the PERS Pro YouTube channel. With the new year comes new legislation. Today, we are reviewing how you can stay informed of legislative changes the 2026 session that impact PERS members. Whether you are an active employee concerned about salary raises or a retiree tracking cost of living adjustments. Understanding how the Mississippi legislature works is the first step to effective advocacy. Let's get started.

To track legislation effectively, you first have to understand the journey a bill takes. It's certainly a marathon, not a sprint, and there are many deadlines where a bill can fail. Here is an excellent graphic from the Mississippi Legislature. Every law starts as an idea, often from a constituent like you. Let me try to simplify this path into five steps that general bills follow. Special note here though, that appropriation and revenue bills follow different deadlines.

Step one, drafting an introduction. A state representative or state senator files the bill. For the 2026 session, the deadline to introduce general bills is January 19th, 2026.

Step two, committee stage. This is where most bills die. Bills are assigned to committees like Appropriations or Public Health. If the committee chairman doesn't bring it up for a vote by the February 3rd, 2026 deadline, the bill is dead.

Step 3 Floor Action If the bill passes committee, it goes to the full House or Senate for a vote. The House or Senate must pass their own bills by February 12th, 2026 to send it to the other chamber.

Step four, second chamber and conference committee. The process above repeats itself in the other chamber. If the other chamber changes even one word, the bill goes to what's called a conference committee. This is a small group of negotiators from both chambers whose goal is to find a compromise. Both chambers must agree and adopt the bill by April 3, 2026.

Step 5 Governor's Desk Once both chambers pass the exact same version of the bill, or her signature. The governor can sign it into law, let it become law without signing, or veto it. Once the bill is presented to the governor, the governor has five days to act while in session or 15 days to act if out of session.

Now that you know the process a bill takes, how do you actually keep up with a specific bill that impacts you? After all, there are hundreds of bills introduced every legislative session.

Step one, visit the official bill status website. Once there, you can search many ways, such as by bill number or by code section or by text. Let me demonstrate now how to navigate this section by taking a look at the Senate's teacher pay raise under Senate Bill 2001, which has recently been in the news. So here I am on the Mississippi Legislature's website under legislation all measures. Once here, you can see this lists all bills that have been introduced or currently under consideration. It is listed alphabetically and numerically, meaning House bills will be listed first before Senate bills. Now, once here, what I recommend is searching by a keyword. So I'm going to search for raise. And you can see here there are two bills, one in the House, House Bill 177, one in the Senate, Senate Bill 2001 that have been introduced. If I click on one of these hyperlinks, let's click on Senate Bill 2001, it will take me to the actual bill language. From here, you can see the changes that are being made at the top, and then the actual language of those changes will be underlined in the bill. And you can see here there are 19 pages to this bill. Let's go back to our search. Back to raise. Now, if instead of clicking on the bill and number, here underneath the actual bill title, which in this case is school teachers, assistant teachers, and college faculty raise of, if we click on the hyperlink below, this is the status of the bill. So if we click on that, And then you can see here under history of actions, all the actions that have been taken on that bill. And just as some tips, the date is pretty self-explanatory. The S stands for Senate, H will stand for House, and then you'll have some legal actions that have been taken on this bill. A tips, refer to means it's sitting in a committee, title stuff to pass means the committee approved it, and died in committee means the bill is dead. You can also see on the bill page here, the version as it was introduced, as well as other versions after it's gone through various committees or conference committee and as approved by the governor. you'll have when the bill becomes effective and you can see here this one would take effect July 1st, 2026. You can see the deadline that it falls under. In this case, it'll be under the general bill deadlines. You can also see the code sections that it impacts. And importantly for those that want to reach out to their lawmakers, whether they support or oppose a bill, you can see here that this bill was referred to the Senate Education Committee. The principal author was Senator DeBarr. And additional authors are Senator Hobson and Senator Boyd. Step two is setting up alerts and monitoring bills. Mississippi doesn't have a built-in email alert system on the official legislature website that I'm aware of, but you can use these tools.

Leagascan, a free low-cost service where you can create an account and get email notifications whenever a specific bill number or keyword like PERS is updated.

Social media. You can follow the Mississippi House and Senate social media feeds, such as on X, Facebook, YouTube, et cetera, or follow local personalities who cover the Capitol daily or weekly.

Newsletters, there are many nonprofits and associations that provide legislative updates to its subscribers and or its members on a regular basis. These updates tend to be more focused on issues and bills that impact its subscriber or member base. As a PERS member, your engagement matters.

Here are actions you can take today to get started.

Step one, find your local lawmakers. Go to the member section on legislature.ms.gov and find the representative and senator for your home district save their contact information, both phone and email, in your phone.

Step two, introduction, offer, and gratitude. First, introduce yourself. Second, offer your time to answer questions your lawmakers may have on issues you are most familiar with. Third, be sure to thank them for voting in favor of a bill you support or voting against a bill you didn't support. Supporting rather than attacking during your first interaction with your local lawmakers will go a long way towards starting the relationship on the right foot.

Step three, find your source. Find and then follow a newspaper, a newsletter, television station, radio station, podcast, or social media personality whose work you enjoy reading, watching, or listening to that can provide timely Mississippi legislative updates that impact you.

If you want to take further action in shaping state employee legislation, in our next video, we will be sharing some organizations that lobby for educators and PERS members and how you can get involved. Please make sure you subscribe so you don't miss our future videos. If you found this video helpful, can thank me by liking the video and sharing it with other PERS members. If you have a follow-up question about PERS or anything else related to personal finance, please visit our website at perspro.ms and submit your question or topic for a future episode. Thank you for your valuable public service to the state of Mississippi. We'll see you next time.

Disclaimer, this video is for educational and informational purposes only. Neither the host nor this YouTube channel are officially affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Public Employees Retirement System of Mississippi. Always consult a qualified professional for personal advice specific to your situation.